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Monthly Archives: December 2015

Readers of a certain age might remember a computer game called ‘Lunar Lander’, where you had to use your keyboard to manoeuvre a spaceship onto a planet’s surface without destroying it. Not easy.

Well, Elon Musk – boss of SpaceX – managed it in real life this week. The company launched a rocket into space, dropped off a few satellites, and then made a smooth landing back on earth. Obviously it’s not the first time a space vehicle has made it back to earth, but as the Wall Street Journal put it, “the gentle landing… marked the first time any large rocket has managed a controlled recovery after delivering a payload into orbit.”

It might sound geeky, but in the long run, reusable rockets would be “a game changer for the space industry”. They’ll make the whole business cheaper and in turn, render “space accessible to an array of companies and researchers that currently can’t afford to get into orbit.”

MoneyWeek have written up on this this month and will continue on the topic next year.

Let there be no Star Wars!

In the equation are new space stations most probably and therefore a whole galactical space where ‘things’ can be manufactured off and out in a neutral atmosphere. What kind of industries and cities can they be?

The Scientist has been writing again giving their insight to the material universe. My name for it as the step outside material involves time and non material things we know little of.

Here’s the Scientists latest post.

Can the idea of quantum entanglement explain the world or replace the metaphysics?

This peculiar phenomenon causes two or more particles to share a common feature which cannot be described individually. One requirement in quantum mechanics is that thedescribed object/particles are be able to exists in two states simultaneously. This means if we have two objects pointing upwards and downwards at a same time, a measurement that determines the state of the object will project it to one of the two possibilitiesat random. Now if there is a pair of these and entangled, a measurement on one object determines the potential rest of second object independent of how far they are from each other.

It’s not wrong to say that there’s a quantum world, it’s the whole world including ourselves.

World of this kind goes back to Aristotle, where there is a polarity of an individual things, which characterised by intrinsic properties of each.

End of the day the nature can only be explained as whole through us and through every pieces in us.

(This I understand to be the passage of neutrinos and our composition through and in it.)New Quantum Theory Could Explain the Flow of Time is a wired.com essay which brings together many aspects.

Such as :

Not to mention a bit of philosophy.

According to the scientists, our abilityto remember the past but not the future, another historically confounding manifestation of time’s arrow, can also be understood as a buildup of correlations between interacting particles. When you read a message on a piece of paper, your brain becomes correlated with itthrough the photons that reach your eyes. Only from that moment on will you be capable of remembering what the message says. As Lloyd put it: “The present can be defined by the process of becoming correlated with our surroundings.”

The backdrop for the steady growth of entanglement throughout the universe is, of course, time itself. The physicists stress that despite great advances in understanding how changes in time occur, they have made no progress in uncovering the nature of time itself or why it seems different (both perceptually and in the equations of quantum mechanics) than the three dimensions of space. Popescu calls this “one of the greatest unknowns in physics.”

More

“We can discuss the fact that an hour ago, our brains were in a state that was correlated with fewer things,” he said. “But our perception that time is flowing — that is a different matter altogether. Most probably, we will need a further revolution in physics that will tell us about that.” of space. Popescu calls this “one of the greatest unknowns in physics.”

This is extracted from the wired.com article.

“We can discuss the fact that an hour ago, our brains were in a state that was correlated with fewer things,” he said. “But our perception that time is flowing — that is a different matter altogether. Most probably, we will need a further revolution in physics that will tell us about that.”

News has reached me of the source of the alpha beta particle names.
Lord Rutherford of New Zealand.

Lord Rutherford

Research and Discoveries

In 1895, as the first research student at the University of Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory in London, Rutherford identified a simpler and more commercially viable means of detecting radio waves than had been previously established by German physicist Heinrich Hertz.

Also while at Cavendish Laboratory, Rutherford was invited by Professor J.J. Thomson to collaborate on a study of X-rays. German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen had discovered X-rays just months before Rutherford arrived at Cavendish, and X-rays were a hot topic among research scientists. Together, Rutherford and Thomson studied the effects of X-rays on the conductivity of gases, resulting in a paper about dividing atoms and molecules into ions. While Thomson went on to examine what would later be called an electron, Rutherford took a closer look at ion-producing radiations.

Focusing on uranium, Rutherford discovered that placing it near foil resulted in one type of radiation being easily soaked up or blocked, while a different type had no trouble penetrating the same foil. He labeled the two radiation types “alpha” and “beta.” As it turns out, the alpha particle was identical to the nucleus of a helium atom. The beta particle was, in fact, the same as an electron or positron.

John Graham

22 December 2015

Belfast

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It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
For many this Christmas will bring agonies of choices to be made for their partners, children, friends and relatives as they struggle to survive.
While many come off the streets and into shops filled with stock to buy and spend vast amounts almost wantonly in order to meet a perception of need and express through it love and with it kindness, generosity, those unable to do the same are imprisoned in a societal profligacy and recklessness abandon of Christian values.Inequality
The poverty is written large and is clear yet the suffering is often borne silently and insensible words and motions are insufficient when the very things cherished, being those closest are themselves awakening to the inequality they are surrounded by.Christianity at work
SVP Strategies are effective and personal.Improving the experience of being helped by the SVP
Here is an extract of what happens from their own account.Improving the experience of being helped by the SVPWhile the majority of research participants had a positive experience of being assisted by the SVP, some had negative experiences. A lack of information about what to expect during a visit; the stigma associated with receiving assistance; and frequent questioning about the household circumstances were less positive aspects of being helped by SVP.
The home visitation experience could be improved if SVP ensures that:
• More Conferences begin to use the SVP Client Case Management System to record information about the households they are assisting. This system can then be checked prior to a visit being carried out, and can be updated following a visit, ensuring that members have easy access to the most up to date information about the household circumstances
• Members communicate clearly with the household about what takes place during a visit; how the household is assessed; and what kind of help may be available
• Members bear in mind that help is often sought as a last resort, when
a situation may be at crisis point and that most people are very reluctant to ask for help and may be embarrassed or upset at having reached the point of contacting SVP
• Members ask directly if the household needs help with specific things, such as food, school costs, costs of childcare or children’s sports or activities and so on, as many of those who participated in the research found it difficult
to ask for the specific things that they needed
• The high levels of loneliness and isolation experienced by many of the research participants and the importance of the visit and chat with SVP members in alleviating some of this loneliness are borne in mind
• Members recognise the stresses and adversities being experienced in households
• One parent families are aware of and supported to access supports and services in their locality which may be of benefit to them
• The parents being visited can have treats for themselves from time to time. A trip to the hairdresser, a sports event or even just the opportunity to go out for a coffee and have some time to themselves can make a difference.Foreboding
Across continents Christmas comes with war and lack of food or shelter. Many nations are so destabilised by governance death and infanticide are unbearably prevalent and never ending. These people are the real poor and some come out of poverty with such resolve and confidence it is seen to be a place where reparations can be made.Unnatural survival
Our nation and circumstances are nevertheless rejectable because worse exists elsewhere but a reminder of certain values becoming universal and instruments of God and free will. No deflection or erosion of the inner self can be done by poverty alone but it brings down its nature to bear on mankind of all races.Pandemic
Within the cities are addicts with drug problems and the fallout of remorseless greed and avarice of the era where cocaine reached and reaches places where it was consumed with plentiful abandon and when risk of drugs was greater than rewards of business where it was an easy addiction to acquire.https://www.christiansdrugrehab.com/christian-addiction-treatment/http://www.nhs.uk/Service-Search/Urgent-Care/LocationSearch/0http://www.uk-rehab.com/rehab/county-antrim-detox-clinic.htm
All areas of the UK are covered with the exception of the US based ChristianRehab connection. More locally the SVP charity gives incredible support and direction to sufferers.
This report is part of the work.https://www.svp.ie/getattachment/0dfc3b0e-9165-4792-946e-43f84199eb57/It-s-The-Hardest-Job-in-The-World.aspx
These are a few of the icebreaker care paths you should take and make sure someone knows what level of despair you may have reached.Hard times
Now the hard addictions are being faced as Heroin and other highs have entangled lives across the island with its massive impact of health problems accompanying the overdoses and general dependency effects materialising once a needle is injected.
Modern society has opened up new consumptions and addictions which are symptoms of the core infliction of absence of faith and belief in the self or of any external guidance.Choices
Whenever anyone finds themselves over this Christmas in such a lonely place and driven to behave recklessly towards addictions of one sort or another they should seek help and in themselves call upon their faith in themselves which they once will have known and take in the thought of God being beside them in whatever shape or form they have known and need now in the dark times.Beside you
God is beside each and everyone of us and this message is needed by all which is why it is so important a ritual and tradition. It highlights not only the need for others, the essential human values we desire and need but it points out starkly that some people need our help and it may be ourselves asking for that.

Mental Health Care
Another source of help with regard to depression and general mental health and well being would be the charity Niamh (Northern Ireland Association for Mental Health)
I didn’t know this but they have across Northern Ireland a whole number of local centres which deal with things from Homelessness to post natal depression and have a wide range of care experience.
This just a snapshot of the Beacon website and as you can see the spread of work is extensive.
Another one of those charities needing support and whose work fills the holes which is the responsibility of central government to shoulder.Sense
The realisation of others strengths and weaknesses is there to be seen and though there is a complete theatre of distraction and devices making the messages unclear and uncertain the underlying tradition and specific retention of good over evil is nonetheless present.Industrial Walls
Within the walls of every country it has the same effect. Deprivation and inequality of life. From households which the following survey accounts in figures for a rich nation, there are other figures for resources held by companies and corporations which outstrip the financial worth of some countries. They are not profiting mankind but hoarding the means to alleviate all poverty and redress the imbalances for a future which requires rapid change.Emphatic
This is recent statistical information deciphered by the Equality Trust, Director Duncan Exley.
from the ONS annual report on British Household wealth
Office of National Statistics.
The richest 10% of households are worth just under £5 trillion – 45% of the total – and have seen their wealth increase by a fifth between the 2010-12 and 2012-14, when the latest survey was conducted.

Their combined fortune is 875 times more than the poorest 10% of households who have less than half of 1% overall. I will put that again – the 10% poorest have less than 1/2 % of overall wealth.

It means the average household in this bottom 10% is worth £12,600. That compares to £225,100 across all households, rising to more than £1 million in the top 10% and nearly £2.9 million for the richest of all.

Property and pensions account for the bulk of what people are worth, around three – quarters of average household’s wealth. But, said the ONS, that wealth is heavily concentrated in the South East of England and London in particular.Wanton
On a sideline note – Wang Jianlin, a Chinese citizen whose wealth is east-imated, sorry estimated at more than £20 billion, has bought a house in Kensington Palace Gardens for £80 million. It’s not in the finest of condition or to his palatial taste and he has not moved in as it will have millions more spent renovating it and making sure it’s nine bathrooms, grand entertaining rooms, indoor swimming pool are fit to inhabit.

In Britain his business concerns include Dorset based, Sunseeker Yachts.Morality is not our prisoner.
Gods retribution is akin to a forgiveness and Yeats saw this if I use a phrase of his obliquely – ‘the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity‘ beir bua. Or that being applied is actually in reference to division. To Theology retribution is held the meaning – the distribution of rewards and punishments in a future life, is thereafter.

In religious terms it is left to God and the word is – quite literally – apocatastasis.
The meaning of which is – the state of being restored or reestablished; restitution.
the doctrine that Satan and all sinners will ultimately be restored to God.

Also, apokatastasis.

The ‘being left to’ is a philosophy of human life being unable to answer for others but to do their utmost to forgive which can be done I suppose through education and awareness for the sinner
Within and without oneself.
It references also into Universalism.Preparing for our future
Into a more rational God.
More than is combative. Reaching toward is less so. Holding out hope is what faith is and portends awareness not certainty.Prayerfulness
Our love commences with love and remembrance of Christ his son as we take that into our own giving and seeking of love. That we remember the love first given by God.
Prayer is a return to God in the person you are, knowing it is through Him the word.

In the Hymn Just as I am by Charlotte Elliott who wrote it having told a Minister she was not worthy of becoming a Christian was told that she should come as you are.
That is wisdom through simplicity and is the first thing to place you faith in.
The understanding of God.
Is the simplest and most powerful thing.

Just as I am without one plea. by Charlotte Elliott

Just as I am without one plea
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidd’st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

Just as I am, and waiting not
To rid my soul of one dark blot,
To Thee, whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

Just as I am, tho’ tossed about,
With many a conflict, many a doubt
Fighting within, and fears without,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind,
sight, riches, healing of the mind
Yes, all I need, in Thee to find,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

Just as I am Thou wilt receive,
Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve,
Because Thy promise I believe,
O Lamb of God I come, I come!

Just as I am Thy love unknown,
Hath broken every barrier down,
Now to be Thine, yea, Thine alone,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

Commission on Religion and Belief in Public Life
This commission has employed the services of the formidable brain and intellect of Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss to engage on the subject of relations between faiths. The faiths Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities dominate, as one might imagine, the reach of the report.

Transparency of Governance and Openess of faith.
This is the whole thing behind the report.
How to teach Religion and other Spiritually derived Doctrines.
From the Secular, Humanist kind to the traditional Religions and faith groups of many variations and beliefs.

It mostly concerns the Education environment and the clear ‘imposition’ of ideologies in accordance with criteria complexly orientated to fashion lives conducive to the apparatus in play in the nation or the mindset of the people, imagined or otherwise. Other wise. Now there is where the Baroness is called to assist!
Sanguine though, Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss is not and blood courses through her veins as optimism and expediency move and direct the progression of thought and arguments on the state of play for what David Cameron has pronounced more than once, ‘the United Kingdom is still a Christian country’. Local newspapers take a reactionary line, in particular the ‘Newsletter’ with its Saturday soapbox oratory on Churches; seldom if ever do Jewish, Catholic (this applied word indeed covers Protestant faiths if they did but acknowledge it) Evangelical or other humanist beliefs and others feature, with the headline ‘Radical religious study evokes a faith backlash’. Purporting, the newspaper that is, it to be dominated by “an old fashioned view that traditional religion is declining in importance and non-adherence to a religion is the same as humanism and secularism.” is singularly off piste. That is nothing new as the newspaper is a sole propraetorial (not in the roman soldier sense) editorial limited perspective rarely given to insights, at least in its modern form.

The committee was commissioned by the Woolf Institute and far be it from me to ask what inspires its intervention I nevertheless suppose a nascent desire to improve communication and therefore progress the notion of unity and collegiate scholars and practitioners in public life of the word of God.

Collegiality indeed is a unifying word. It embodies same self aimed discipline and order with a purpose in mind. It is outstandingly practical to have Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss study within Britain and Northern Ireland the mechanisms employed and that characterise the faith practioners alive and well across all aspects of community.
Religious ‘attendance’ has plateaued it seems from this graph.
It is not falling despite views normally expressed.
I declare a presupposed position in relation; being of Irish descent coloured by some polarity from England or Scotland, an abiding cynicism with regard to the ‘established’ church and the violations and destructive tendencies surrounding it getting its own way in all things regarding the vague and imperfect label of nationhood. I believe presently we are still violated through religions by sovereignty as is evident if you distill David Cameron’s narrowness of phrase and the inference of establishment to which even he is beholden. Not to God but to a ruler whose concept of God is the one dogma and doctrine we must as a ‘nation’ follow.

Into this ‘cauldron’ comes the distaste and hypocrisy of violating Gods law.
The incoherent aspects of Syrian intervention is espoused by Hilary Benn alongside fellow warmongers of the right wing benches whose end game is un-summarised and absent. Totalitarian politics is once again before us with reasons for going to war unversed and unestablished before the people whose voice is nullified and unmanaged through conscripted minds of local bureaus and committees of party dogma.

The House of Lords is a public assembly, without the nicety of democratic provenance. It has – and this is a very important point with it being foremost an arena for properly extrapolated debate in the only chamber available for such oratory – hardly any representation of the religious faiths that combine our breadth of theological beliefs within Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

It is predominately a Church of England domain. It has heavily sided and been constructed around one power of religion. Now there is a surprise.
I think not – well actually I think of the missing imams, rabbis, and other absent faith representatives which the Baroness also draws attention to.Northern Ireland’s little sectarian divide as a pie diagram.
Such a core element of her report is sidelined by the other issue which causes immense division. The hotbed of debate and controversy being the extrapolation by Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss that faith school teaching of through assemblies and such like should be abolished in favour of a less doctrinal, actually wholly removed doctrinal approach as needed to accommodate the diversity and cross polarity of religious practice.

This is not in conflict with Jesus and Gods work. Only the obstacle of faith groups pulling rank and assimilation of rule not religious understanding is to be found at the rope end of the debate. The push me pull me tug of war of
Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss’s conclusions are taken as swords and axis of polarisation. I shouldn’t wonder that it plays into the hands of the ‘established’ church though that is not necessarily the nature of the uncovered intelligence which is brought forward.

Progressive religion has been a companion of bloodshed and war since the first Christmas and long before it.GBs Pie
Within the report comes a assuage on Ethinicity and the Construct of the
Aw on relation to these matters.

It is extracted as follows –

The concept of ethnicity
8.29 Where different communities have similar experiences they should expect to be treated in the same way by the law.Therefore there needs to be a better understanding of how race, ethnicity and religion overlap, and what this means in practice for different communities. British Sikh communities, for example, have consistently argued that they are recognised as an ethnic group in law but are denied this status in ethnic monitoring, which has helped to hide many of the socio-economic issues Sikh communities face and that need addressing with public resources.41 We recommend that an appropriate body, for example the Equality and Human Rights Commission or the Law Commission, should review how the categories of race, ethnicity and religion interact in practice and whether, as argued in this chapter, there are certain unjust anomalies which must be recognised and addressed.
8.30 A focused piece of policy work should be carried out revisiting the race, ethnic and religious categories created in the 1970s and 1980s and exploring how they could be made more relevant, meaningful and fair in the light of more recent experience. Amongst other things, such a review should look at the policy framework in Australia, which explicitly uses the legal category of ‘ethno-religious’.
8.31 In cases where government wishes to discuss or amend legislation that directly affects communities of religion or belief, it should be adopted as a principle that government ensures that credible academic research is used as a basis for its proposals and that there is early consultation with communities which could be most affected. Working with faith communities may require public officials to undergo specific training to ensure that they have knowledge of the religious beliefs and practices of the communities they serve.They should also be equipped to design policies that accommodate religion and belief in ways that have due regard for the requirements of the public sector equality duty (PSED).Counter-terrorism legislation
8.32 In framing counter-terrorism legislation, the government should seek to promote, not limit, freedom of enquiry, speech and expression, and should engage with a wide range of affected groups, including those with which it disagrees, and also with academic research. It should lead public opinion by challenging negative stereotyping and by speaking out in support of groups that may otherwise feel vulnerable and excluded.
1 See Equality Act (2010), s.217.The full act applies in England and Wales. In Scotland, s.190 and Part 15 do not apply.The act does not apply to Northern Ireland apart from s.82, s.105(3) and (4), and s.199.
2 Donald with Bennett and Leach (2012), pp. 1, 45.There are a number of exceptions – see paragraph 8.5. Harassment on grounds of religion or belief is only prohibited in relation to employment, not in relation to the provision of goods and services. See Equality Act (2010), s.29(8).
3 Exceptions in domestic and EU law include cases where a religion or belief is considered to constitute an occupational requirement of a particular job, and in cases of age discrimination and some forms of disability discrimination. Edge and Vickers (2015), pp. 26, 31.
4 For further explanation of direct and indirect discrimination, see Donald with Bennett and Leach (2012), pp. 45–46; Edge and Vickers (2015), p.30–38.
5 Equality Act (2010), s.149. See also Donald with Bennett and Leach (2012), pp. 175–181.
6 In R. (Brown) v. Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2008] EWHC 3158 the court clarified what a public body must do in order to fulfil the requirement to have due regard to the aims of the public sector equality duty.These ‘Brown’ principles have been accepted by courts in subsequent cases. See further Equality and Human Rights Commission (2014), pp. 19–22.

We are not reconciled to true inclusive religion still.

That is the core edict of this report and by example it’s needs are expressed to us and for us to begin to see the central theme of unity is where the work is required. Not in the machinations of faith schools practice. Of parents imposed dogma o their children through their own fears not understanding the meaning of the Bible or other expressions of Gods will.

The adults are harming the future and are not reconciled yet place the burden on the children to absorb and become unradicalised/radicalised towards a vision and pathway to their own learning and uptake of prejudices which are then imbedded and later hard to escape from. Many people are wrestling from thunder the burden of their parents will and tradition and face complex problems and contradictions in their relationships and encounters with other races and creeds.

Here so am extract transcript of the Vision concerning Education.
It is dependent on lots of discussions and whether they take place is another matter

EDUCATION (chapter 4)6. Statutory entitlement
Governments across the UK should introduce a statutory entitlement for all schools within the state system for a subject dealing with religious and non-religious worldviews.They should establish content and learning objectives that can be flexibly applied by teachers, allowing the minimum requirements to be built on differently by different schools.The content should be broad and inclusive in a way that reflects the diversity of religion and belief in the UK, and the subject should have the same status as other humanities subjects. (Paragraphs 4.22–4.24 and 4.27)7. Collective worship
Governments should repeal requirements for schools to hold acts of collective worship or religious observance and issue new guidelines building on current best practice for inclusive assemblies and times for reflection that draw upon a range of sources, that are appropriate for pupils and staff of all religions and beliefs, and that will contribute to their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. (Paragraphs 4.17 and 4.28)8. Admissions and employment
Responsible bodies should recognise the negative practical consequences of selection by religion in schools, and that most religious schools can further their aims without selecting on grounds of religion in their admissions and employment practices, and should take measures to reduce such selection. (Paragraphs 4.10–4.12 and 4.28)9. Outside the timetable
Governments should expect publicly funded schools to be open for the provision of religion- or belief-specific teaching and worship on the school premises outside of the timetable for those who request it and wish to participate; this would be in line with the autonomy of young people and their human right to freedom of religion or belief. (Paragraph 4.28)10. Inspection
State inspectorates should be concerned with every aspect of the life of faith schools, including religious elements currently inspected by denominational authorities. (Paragraph 4.28)11. Training
In all teacher education attention should be given to religion and belief that is of a similar level to that which is given to reading and maths, so that every primary class teacher is confident and competent in this curriculum area, whether implicit or explicit, and so that in secondary and FE teaching all staff have general awareness of relevant sensitivities. (Paragraphs 4.16 and 4.28)12. Dialogue and enquiry
Governments should clarify and emphasise that in all phases and sectors of the education system respectful and thoughtful discussion of contrasting opinions and worldviews is essential, and that all staff have skills in the educative handling of sensitive and controversial issues. (Paragraphs 4.25–26 and 4.28)

Monitoring
So how about teachings outside of Schools and in their time.
Where is the doctrinal situation witnessed or inspected?
Within Meeting Places, of the religious kind many diverse forms of teaching will exist without monitoring and the horrible term ‘radicalization’ comes due to lack of transparency.

Even within their own communities and next door to their beliefs another vision is at play. Today through migration, unrest, displacement is extensive and pandemic where morality is thrust forward and challenges peoples core values. People are being asked Gods questions as never before. As deeply they are asked to be generous and welcoming of widespread different versions of humanity as never before witnessed in their lifetime.

Jubilee Explained
People have been asking what is Jubilee and where does it come from.

Just over a year ago – on 14 December 2015 I penned the following words as an adjunct to the words delivered at St Martins in the Field London by
Dr Sam Wells St Martins Sunday Service 14 December 2014

It is based on biblical text and follows things such as the turning over of the moneylenders tables in the Temple and the wrongness of usary.

Clearly it is what is wanted by God of us as Jesus showed.

Here is the straight forward explanation he, Dr Sam Wells, used at St Martins Sunday Service 14 December 2014
It has been extracted by me again and given as inspiration to all.

It was especially addressed at Christmas Time as I have indeed followed by posting earlier this week an account on Economics : Jubilee which brings focus to all other aspects of Jubilee that discussion brings.

It is in our prayer

It is in our times as before
I was fine until I fell into debt
I was fine until I let things smother me

50% of Tower Hamlets children
Live in poverty the average salary
in the London Borough is £50,000
Cheque books have more to do with poverty
The bible shows everywhere within it
Ways of release that Jesus taught us

The times are temporal our forever joy
Never without time we are promised
Perpetual time.
The time we know through God
Perpetual time is my mind brings
Is time in Gods hands does not exist

In life as in death god makes us
Without separation No broken touch
Ever present in other peoples lives
The guidance given for us to receive
Trade and taxes levied on the poor
The poor with reason enough to borrow

Borrow and borrowed are debts trespasses sins
Glimpse followers of Jesus
The Good Samaritan, the prodigal son,
the people of the vineyard all in the presence
in that debt, that sin

John GrahamIsaiah 61

Jubilee appears

Fields lay fallow every fifty year
No accumulation of wealth or debt
In every second generation all is wiped
Everyone went back to square one
The implications simple yet profound
Letting people free from the grip

Of the impossible possibility.
Christian Aid likewise St Martins
The spirit of the Church and Jesus
is upon it from bereavement
from ill health from Broken family lives
the Jesus we follow urged us all

Within his followers comes the vision
of the possible within the impossible
Anointing God you brought Jesus
Into our lives Transforming
God you gave people
Friends in Jesus united

Your spirit binds up the broken
Their relationships their feeling
of being unwanted in a world full of want
That minds can be calmed and clarity
Through Gods gift of Jesus. Bringing hope
Never forget your brother or sister

Never forget your own struggle
Or forget the way you are healed
It is not at once in a vision but in an eternity
It is always there not just about personal redemption
Not just about the human making sense of the world
The world needs no explanation

The world is within us as it is
Outside us the presence
It’s very existence uniting us as one
Knowing the universe is present in all
The ways of the world are Jesus’s way
Gods way to be with you this day and for evermore.

Comedy Los Angeles Style
It’s been a while since Lily Tomlin, one of Americas finest comedic actresses has graced the screen in a title role and this brings her front and rudely central into a great part for her later years. She has said it is likely her last movie but it is maybe froth on the hype of this film.
It is a masterly refreshing return and this movie has depth and well written dilemma and drama and storyline developed through its funny, acerbic and challenging story. It is up in the hills and all over as journey around chasing bucks in the Hollywood Hills. As you do.Septuagenarian?
Grandma is a woman whose life has many chapters of which rebelliousness is not lost or a constant search for love wherever it might exist.
It opens with her being a hard nosed (acting out as seniors do having a retinue of life experiences to call on) with her partner as they reach a low point or shake up or make up point in the relationship. It’s a junior relationship, in terms of days as well as years and we get a piece of storyline of the recently or not so long ago for Grandma Elle Reid,
A fit seventy five year old Lily Tomlin is young for the part of the septuagenarian (80’s isn’t it?!) and she and the part pack a punch which has energy and quick wittedness, Lily having the timing and kitschy Jewish snappiness of a Jackie Mason. Some one liners are rich, rustic, rubicund, rude, and slam dunk moment which have even a small review audience roaring with laughter as much as cynical worn dudes can. They slacken of the chains of movie hubris momentarily.
Paul Weitz of American Pie and About a boy fame has made a low budget stop with this philosophical peppy unrestrained pic. Lily Tomlin reprises if you like the genre of telephone operator (without scruples) Ernastine or Edith Ann of rocking chair wisdom.Grandchild
Alongside her is the other central character. For a Grandma has to have a grandchild and this is the wonderful petite Sage (cue the odd joke) played by the curly blonde Julia Garner with the straight line role of teenage leaning about life (sex education is a topic with many strands and the theories on her schooling feature on several characters roster) while Grandma is on a low having departed from Olivia played by Judy Greer whose existence comes as a bit of a surprise to Sage given she is closer to her age than Grandma. Question arises ‘are all men etc….’ in the mist above her head and implied to the reviewer. Feminism is a specialist subject of the retiree Academic Poet Writer Grandma Ellie Reid (Lily) has been in the real world and she carries her now pauperism life – medical bills for her lost love, paying of all her debts as a clean break – leaves her in a dilemma how to help her granddaughter Sage who comes knocking at her door.Motor Melon Man
Men can’t carry a melon?
The two get along great and have early connection over the ‘growing oversized water melon’ Sage is carrying and Ellie has a lot of sympathy with this ‘child’ whose own choices (her brilliantly portrayed Mum, her mother, Judy played by the equally superb comedic Marcia Gay Harden. Her mother plays a great mini-me – Lily with an economics degree and flat down slam dunk reality check – one of her best lines comes and I won’t spoil it for you on what a mistake is – so decked in power red and on her game and caffeine enhanced world as to nearly steal the show from the fellow conspirators on this road trip to reality.What’s the Story?
If I’ve left out the premise so far you’ve probably guessed it. It concerns the screw up literally both with the nerdy boyfriend, played by Nat Wolff and the rush to the solution which brings in, in little segmented stories characters, starting with the road mobilé Dodge Royal – a shiny black god for the road with the set designers crayon ‘broken/cracked passenger window touch to make it appear not so slick! and the late Elizabeth Pena giving it everything as a bookshop proprietress; nice little story joiner in here to say nothing of the fem on calories cruncher, as an accomplice in this terrific moving (literally) film.Gravitas kicks in.
This is a brilliant duet entering the story. Well paired and much more than the basic met up.
The cinema growls and our ears are met with a very unusual sound at one point. The deep growl of action man cowboy Sam Elliot enters with a deep bass voice as the character Karl. An ex of Ellie he is greeted on the step of his elevated retiree home overlooking wonderful LA. It may not be the Koneig house (go looking it up it will astonish you if you’ve never seen it – now a national monument!) but hangs over the kingdom of made up reality as good as one could hope for.

This is the centre of the film from which the curve takes on another slide and Los Angeles with the sunshine state splitting the freeways and luscious tree lined avenues on the heights gives a stark contrast to the bewilderment, predicament plays havoc with the mind, the emotions and wider bigger picture which is what director Paul Weitz whose story, writing this is intended to immerse us in.
Complacency is not an object to enter nor logic, the meaning of which cannot be tapered with – it is after all – a form of syllogism in which the major premise is formed of two or more hypothetical propositions and the minor premise is a disjunctive proposition, as “If A, then B; if C then D. Either A or C. Therefore, either B or D.” – put that in as I didn’t appreciate how sound it was and is as a force of gravity the film is and shapes into.

Conclusion. ####4
Short though this film is at 78 mins it neither slows or quickens through the reveal and has in it many high points of Humour and seriousness of aspect. It delivers a punch almightily and forcefully as indeed life does and director Paul Weitz has constructed this knowing full well I suppose the genius of the irascible tip tappy bombastic phenomenon Lily Tomlin would bring if he were to cast her. Much of her past movies are solidly placed as undercurrent as sound platforms and referencing for both the players skills and the writers vision. It is a pretty awesome film given its slender ‘seasonal headliner pocket of marketing’ and can be appreciated on so many levels.
It sends out without being preachy questions only you can answer. The film won’t provide answers but delivers another perspective giving emotional clout and much to consider afterwards and can be a basis in itself to discuss the subjects it presents and encounters.

Experience is everything in this context and Lily Tomlin needs an Oscar for her part as the Grandma or a big handshake hug for her dynamic of a film career. Mind you, much as I love the playing I still am even more appreciative of Marcia Gay Harden as a undercut, slightly manic controlled comedic slice of genius.

John Graham

9 December 2015

Belfast

See from Friday 11 December to and including 17 December 2015.

Keep an eye open for it around and about over Christmas as it is something of a go see movie with more to it than a walk up Christmas movie.

World of Imagination
Television series Game of Thrones has created a set of imagined spaces and realised them in a conscripted form of Architectural history.
It is not stationary but adds its own vision to it, forming the world it inhabits.
Outside of reality imagined sets of Cities, Interior worlds, Ampitheatre and Theatrical overtures are clamouring to focus the viewers attention on storyline and plot. Narrative drives everything from the Throne itself and many sublet versions of it make the story follow the money or the gore.
The alterations in ownership of the top of the pyramidical structure is wrought for all it’s worth. Space and control of it are primary edicts.

The world of nature and environment are the primary winners and humans have their own constructions on it.

The seminar set up by QUB Architectural Society I attended had as it’s title On the theme ‘Journeys in Architecture’ – the Physcology of Space with reference to the Production of Game of Thrones given by Deborah Riley it’s Art Director. (Note the psychology spelling mistake of the poster – it rarely entered the psychology in any case)History
Never far away are actual pyramids and the ancients. From the film I recently viewed, Sunset Song, symbols are also referenced though these are in the form of megaliths and standing stones. Ancient reference. Here instead Game of Thrones acts out the Alexander, Roman and Moorish examples of architectural artifice.

Conceit is always thrust forth as the mental, psychological, imagination in flight. Birds, three eyed or binary are roll called to stir the emotional wizardry and supposed shared worlds of control and magnitude of spread of territory. Likewise the roots of nature are entwined into preternatural creatures, here in rhododendron bush branches laboriously honed sanded to configure and clasp as the rooted body of a key character are extensively relied on to convey this otherworldly vision. Outside of visual digital conception this is arranged as a epoch making manifestation of series style.
Nature endures. Nature endures. Foremost is this primary truth yet the series is a purvey acne of artifice and untruth with the counter narrative of we see the world outside the reality or imagination driven to the viewer.

Is it a cast back to the theatrical illusions and distortions often seen in three dimensions in an auditorium or outdoors at night at an Ampitheatre?

I think this two dimensional treatment forgets it’s delivery is into living rooms or large screen darkness in a audio visual suite. Potentially the architecture is diminished and tokenistic. Any elaboration is taken as artifice for what it is alongside the digital visual lift shed upon the screen.

Detail is so important as a statement and substantiation of the theme or direction of concept. Through my short viewing of the series I often note the absence of drapery or tapestry and the gilt pictorial representation present in all cultures. Neither sculpture or art works are there any indications of higher art. Each of those is only present in a slightly formalized way, with dogs, wolves, no wall hangings and elsewhere in tiling and geometrical mosaic like depiction.

A lot of referencing to the Albert Speers, Frank Lloyd Wright, both psychological practitioners, were raised by the designers working on Art direction and underwhelmed being so familiar as erecessitive style icons. Also hinged into the work is religious beginnings with little or no spiritual delivery or significance. A kind of consumerism enters.

It’s possibly unfair to cite a TV series as anything of bearing on the practice of architecture. Civilizations real have sought and corrupted the art just as a corruption of talent and ideas for as long as it has existed.
It has existed alongside the sublime to the ridiculous.
For a series though it has the element of embracing thought and the imagined potential which otherwise remains unaccomplished. It’s service is not aspirational or inspirational but as a means of observing what world thoughts have a presence on our psyche. It is not a noble examination but merely a snapshot illuminating the human condition flawed or otherwise.Difference
Of the 20th Century some buildings went so far as to redefine in timeless and awesome beauty and incredible execution of higher things and none so brilliant than Coventry Cathedral by Basil Spence.

Into this building and I rate it more significant and better than anything produced by Jean Genet, Jorn Utzon or anyone else regarded at the height of architectural expression, their is a collaborative element like no other.
Sir Basil Spence like so many architects in previous centuries called upon artists and craftsmen to deliver into this building the real composition of a whole. The participants where Graham Sutherland and John Hutton.
There is the cluster of triads on the ‘Bishop’s throne from the inspiration of Sir Basil Spence who alighted on a complex thorn geometric frame in Graham Sutherlands house as unifying his idea to simplify and create choir canopies, the throne backdrop and horizontal pull from the chancel onwards the high nave windows.
The vertical depiction of thorns as a canopy to the throne becomes transformative. It’s as though the thorns become birds. There is also the sculptors Elizabeth Frink, whose lectern is an astonishing eagle of perfect scale and presence. Even the grid to rest the Bible upon is an open grid frame. It is perfection. Ever present is the work of Sir Jacob Epsteins whose imagery is at once the gravitas and supreme heraldry of The Cathedral in its portrayal of St Michael and the devil.
Looking back on these things now is like looking at the origins of the work of Michelangelo. Sir Jacob Epstein was working at a time after conflict and great loss of human life, was re-evaluating on behalf of a Church which was soon to attempt its own transformation alongside its fellow traveller the Catholic Church whose Vatican 2 was in the potential making.
He therefore uniquely placed to envision on the cliff face of this impediment, this mere cliff face of a building reaching towards the sky as a unifying, one spire like edifice to awaken lost souls. I say impediment because it is a space we are drawn to and we cross an imagined boundary into it. That is we take in its thrall. Entering a tomb for the living to reflect and return to themselves having sought the power instilled in them by God.
The vision created by the unity of vision which Sir Basil Spence brought is still overlooked in its entirety. To have said in the trenches off Normandy in 1944 when asked what his ambition was, under the consciousness of the bereavement of war and of obvious reflection on the waste of mankind he said, and it is true not folklore, “to build a Cathedral”.
The Church of England was the the musician of the orchestration of the Phoenix it was once the host of. From the Coventry of Lady Godiva to now return to creating a new church was its necessary task. Such were the enthusiasm of the Bishops and Holy Family empowered with conceiving of this instrument to play before God they were richly rewarded with inspiration not least to fasten upon the developing skills of the Architect Sir Basil Spence. Even from the beginning what we now think of as the Graham Sutherland tapestry owes its presence to the initial sketches including the figure of Christ in tapestry at the focal alter place of the imagined Church.
It was an outstanding vision no doubt borne out of deep reflection and concern of the cost of war, this new expression of love and hope with a reticence and design of omission of artifact and iconography hitherto present and faintly if not entirely plagiaristic.

We are lucky to also have in Ireland parallel works by the late renowned Architect religious practitioner Liam McCormick. His influences personal and of wider perspective have a fellowship unmistakably in harmony with Spences.

Sir John Pipers stain glass windows are a vector of light inspiring the interior and the effect is muted while gloriously effecting response to the kaleidoscopic abundance of elemental worldly existing things and evoke things of unimagined presence yet to be discovered.
So many combined to author this magnificent Building while understanding the importance fiction only aspires to intemperately and transgressively.
Forms are not two dimensional transitory things is one lesson Architecture teaches us. Transfiguring. Articulating. Expressing. Editing and observing are calculations due evidential conception. The art of deploying to a work by which ever chosen method is a bridge to the materialisation of the sum of those ideas given to the imagination.

The materiality is found shaped in the many combinations, juxtapositions, combinations and support of separate materials. In the following is an illustrative, evident, example.

Forming the glass screens and the stained glass windows where key and delicate decisions of choice and instilled the renaissance of religion into a city bombed into oblivion. An act of extraordinary resurrection was the weight and burden challenging the theologians who were to use the building and bring the common man to turn to God in desperation after the horrors of war and one within the sight of God.
So profound was this challenge it barely takes a word to dismiss Game of Thrones as a mere token of time driven pretence of no significance at all.
The lack of psychology in the talk despite its form was probably because of a distinct lack of understanding of the subject.
Surreal fictional ‘humans’ are the storytellers and authors of the inhabited spaces. They are in their world and we cannot ascribe our own psychology to theirs.
The Chapel of Unity is perhaps the most perplexing space in Coventry Cathedral. It is – and this is fundamentally a fault of denominational religion – a separate place of worship and reflection intended for the ‘Free Churches’ alongside the Anglican tradition who’s Church it forms a part of. You could begin a long discussion on difference when only one creator exists on that alone and the Architects, mere artisans when it comes to inspiration and vision on their part when confronted with such a brief are to be consumed by many external wishes and considerations.

So the Chapel of Unity has a psychology of space of preternaturalness deviating from all reality of things. Our existence inhabiting space.
Playing with concrete, glass, light, entrance, enchantment, accord is something the Architect is challenged immediately with.
The parameters are explanation enough from the Anglicans. They regarded ‘The Chapel of Unity’ as needing no more than 200 seats. It already thereby making a statement of itself as a sect.

To sum up a little on the premise set, the tract of land, the conveyance of thought and requirement of the idea of Church, the collaboration, the statement, of a building together with its grounds or other appurtenances we see Coventry Cathedral calling towards the goal of its brief – ‘Furthermore the building will embody the thought of the descent of the Spirit upon the waiting Church. Liturgically it will have its centre in Pentecost, and will be the Chapel of the Unity and of the Holy Spirit. That will give it a very specific function in perpetuity within the Cathedral and within its liturgical meaning.’

From with one instruction for ‘The Chapel of Unity’ can be gathered many things. In the Cathedral is a division. The words can apply to the whole but are specific to the Chapel. In its awe inspiring sanctity it creates difference. Mere play with materials such as concrete and glass, of height and containment are graduations of meaning humans in cloth have chosen and made progress on choices. It is unfathomable and incomprehensible to elicit the creator in a building on the confines of earthly things.
It is astonishing the comprehensibility is shaped so progressively as a true Journey in Architecture held here.The Elizabeth Frink masterpiece

For architectural Students to find any depth or even direction in Game of Thrones is pretentious bile. It is a confection yes and of ‘financial’ value mainly to the company at its helm but compare the reality of the art of Architecture in actual buildings instead to find real value.
Understanding spaces is ultimately a correlation of human occupancy, use and enhancement of their spiritual and core worth. Expedience is not a resolution in itself. So where do you find it?
Coventry Cathedral is one primary source.

The WealthDeep and Crispin Odey
When a billionaire hedge fund manager of £9 billion worth of assets says ..”God got it right,” a certain uncertainty creeps in.
Where on earth is that coming from?
Apart from the newspaper report (sometime ago – earlier this year) which spurs this response I follow the apparent logic to obtain its relevance.
Is it from a position of revaluation?
It is coming from the Leviticus story of (our soon to depart fellow worshiper whose sermon today covers the same thing – the jubilee,
In whom we are indebted for her glorious friendship and fellowship – it will last forever) the fifty years of human misanthropic, well not quite, eremitic, well not so singular, misguided, well getting there, use of others and earths resources to accumulate and hoard, all things for and to have a year of renouncing all debt and indebtedness.Counting your Chickens
Egg or Ego is that 162 ft above sea level one asks.Jubilee
Time does not stand still. Crispin Odey, the billionaire hedge fund manager still hoards but finds hoarding a bit troublesome. You see his sense of jubilee is as though an appointed day shall arrive (hypothetically – there is no way for a moment it is foreseen to happen in his mind – God no.) as his mate of yore, James Goldsmith he relates foreseen the barely radical vision that lending works among peoples of the same classes. They then proceeded to hoard and lends and trade that hoard until, well it was fashionable to discuss once more jubilee.

No second coming or first coming but a return to forever. The cake was out of the pantry and the facts were on the table.
Debt amounts to £100 trillion sloshing about the world.
Do you want to write that off? Where shall we start? Do you take the current account look at it and say it can stand 2% say in the busted yoke economies? Then salvage growth by commodity price deflation? Well no because that would be as nourishing as as the output of one smelly fish farm when the thousands need real sustenance. You need a miracle worker and I can’t see one.
Do you write of 12% say? Well whose debt gets written off and who is the lender to who the debt has accrued to?

25% of the world debt is owed to China and well, they don’t do jubilee. They never did nor never will.
They are stuck though with high expectations for their lending returning new things. Well new things such as a emerging from poverty and hardship concerns seems as clear a goal as anyone ought to aspire too. However the loanees were a few cut from a certain cloth and they have capitalist aspirations akin to the hoarding general principles the mere hedger has been playing Monopoly money with for years.

Find a commodity and invest in its dependency on a market. So that would be oil then. Ŵell actually no when the stem of new technologies cannot be stopped from emerging and growing. So demand is to be from new societies randomly created out of wealth returning through lending and expansion of need? Such as China putting its return into wages topping up to create Consumerism Commensurate China. Bent at the knee for the mammon deity of Matthew and Luke next door to Leviticus.
It is about as productive as a Leviathan outlook spurning the whale as a digestion device and not an organism requiring space on the oceans trampoline of fortune. It makes a big splash.

Are you after a bigger splash. Well it seems as though people define tilt require it as the direction and Deep and Crispin Odey visionaries are all at a quandary trying to cast for one.

Digging out resources
They then wonder how the destructive industries took hold until they look at the location of those avarice goals and commodities lay.
If I recall J.Goldsmith liked his mining a lot. Well a great deal because it was a great deal. Pay people a pittance to extract their own mineral wealth and sell it back to them in mobile phones to ring others for a route out of the place. It’s kind of blew up in our faces round here. It’s enough to make you a green activist. Or go save a whale on a Greenpeace crusade. Or crusade for a jubilee.

You see the jubilee is here everyday. It has no sleep as it follows the sun and the breaking of bread continues while you sleep like the animals show the jubilee takes place with at a certain time of day the water bowl is visited. The drawn water is taken up and needs met for in turn another to replenish its form and it’s need. How it is managed is the nature of the optimal. The hard facts of the surface of the soil being the overgrazed or being the circularly treated replenished pasture. The jubilee allows for untending to take place. That is where the land recovers. It in Leviticus clearly shows the philosophy of permaculture to preside.

The Deep and Crispin Odey needs a bigger umbrella because their is going to be a bigger splash as he and his fellow hoarders the, Banks play odious, greed fashioned, inner mutuality, sick provoking capitalist foolery with the beast they are in the belly of.
You see currency is not one commodity. That being the ‘obtained’ truth they tripped upon, it instead is, one currency is axiomatic.

The jubilee is not alone an act of forgiveness, of sin, of debt or as commonly referred to in prayer. The daily prayer in which we speak of trespass says to us to put down our fears of human, animal or the unknown. The fear we receive is a metabolic explosion of the inner pact we have failing to be responded to by Gods instruction. Respect for others is to respect their difference. It is to respect their own path through life so different it may be for we do not live in the one place.

In the wake of the flood of apathy predicted as the outcome of the Paris Climate talks it is likely the investment needed to bring about real change to climate predictions is not going to happen, Big business, the source of most pollution and intransigence relating to energy usage. The hoarding of assets that could easily transform the process of climate change is frozen. The will does not exist and the tidal flow of melting ice at polar opposites will drown nations and create surges in immigration so far unimagined.
The Syrian crisis can be traced back to the climate activity destroying its agricultural dependency an causing national hardship.

I plea to the rich and the hoarders to reconcile their conscious in more than simple philanthropies but to turn around the motion of Climate change by acting with Governments for change and resource the Energy dependency on fuels which cause the damage in the industries producing the majority of theroblem.

It is a reality which cannot be dismissed and there are climate change scientists with solutions who must be supported.

Otherwise flood event after flood event and degree change will be the onset of this purge of the planters Eco system being done in this the Anthropocene age.

Its a given
To create a market place is to work for the conveyance of the things we can offer with the gift of giving which in return brings the things we have not. This world is the learning becomes the valuable shared commodity. Of cures for this and that. Of minerals capable of crafting living. Of setting quotas of expansion and retraction. Of setting balance of Law and Moral turpitude need be seen in the simple terms of do no harm. Of sharing happiness and relieving harm. Those are exemplary generalities. For once we begin to realise our creative metabolic need is satiated by this permaculture, dwelling as we do for many in fertile conditions, others clearly living with fertile lands out of reach can be met by not animal based proteins but mainly ‘The China Study’ plant based diet our bodies most accord with, is a time beginning.

The senses we have are like the black and blue seen as gold and white. It makes for realisation all is not as it is seen but is what it is.
Who asks why will receive the reply. God only knows.